I have been reading a lot and posting qustions and so i am now belatedly going to start a thread. I hope the photos are of interst and please don't be too tough on the lack of craftmanship.

The initial plan was to build a 36 inch Naples but i gradually changed to follow thers recommendations. So a 1 metre diameter dome, aiming for 49 cm height ended up being the goal.
I have used an I tool, slightly offset from the centre by a hinge. I have not used the clamp with this as intended and maybe that is why I have gone out of round.
Generally the brick work has been tolerable although compared to others the grout gaps and brick placements have been a bit ugly.
I struggled with transition and i have ended up using a lot of homebrew around the inner arch to dome connection. Hopefully this will not prove to be anything other than an aestetic problem.
I least i know the structure is reasonably strong as during the build it has experienced 100 s of aftershocks from our 7.1 earthquake!
Reach chain 8 and i am looking forward to the sky shot looking through the closing roof

Took all day working on chain 8, way harder than the previous. The out of round proved a real problem. I have a gentle spiral going on and I did not think i could get the whole chain to marry up. However, i have just the keystone to fit and although it will be extreme i think it will work. Inspite of my doubts it looks like i live to fight another day but it is getting more difficult to keep the bricks in sympathy. I the end i was pretty pleased with the overall progress albeit very slow.
Please tell me it gets easier now as i approach the last few chains,

Excellent progress. I know the feeling about dealing with the out of round. I think that most folks do as well as the transition is the headache we all deal with. I personnnaly put in 2 partial chains above my transition to feel better, especially since I had to cut keystones for each arch. To paraphrase a comment from Dino to me - after the dome is covered, it will work the same.

The rain stopped so i manged to fit the keystone for chain 8. ticky cut but it went quite well. Cleaned up inside and touched up a few grout lines. Tried to clean up some of the cement haze with some acid wash. As you can see i am far from perfectly round and the sky shots not great. The i tool may be unusable for the next course as i am too far off the target shape, although it did prove useful as a guide if not the exact brick placement device.

Finished the next chain 9 ( including soldier course ) - biy of a nightmare. I could only get round by a bit of stepping and cutting. Not happy with appearance inside the dome although at least it wont show - i don't think i will be taking any flash photos either! Looks like one more chain then close the dome off. I am wondering if i should go for a couple of arches then infill rather than the conventional approach. I have seen some use this concept. Having spent 30 mins inside the dome cleaning up i can relate to the comments of others. A visit to the chiropractic is about the only comparable experience i have had.

Finished the last full chain and created the keystone. I cut and dry staked the brick for the forst time since the soldier course. This really helped in terms of progress. just a shame that my mistakes in the previous couple of courses made the appearance of the inside of the dome a bit shabby. The hole of the keystone was a bit eccentric in all respects but i was happy with the sculpting of the brick. Tomorrow i will fit and seal the dome up.

You are making great progress. The last chain looks great and the plug does too. Can't wait to see your outer arch and smoke box. I found that I am getting better with the cuts as I go along too. Kind of wished I did an oven for someone else first and then my own to take the lessons learned.

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